This invention relates to communication systems, including but not limited to switching modules in communication systems.
Wireline communications are provided by routing calls from an originating device to a terminating device by utilizing telephone numbers. One of the basic pieces of equipment that facilitates wireline service is a communication switch. Such switches often handle routing for thousands of calls at a time.
From time to time, the switch needs to be updated or replaced for various reasons, including failure, technological update, capacity increase, feature enhancement, and switching center floor space reduction. Previous methods of moving telephone lines from one switching module to another switching module, while reusing current peripheral subscriber line units, involved moving subscriber data from the old switching module to the new switching module, exchanging lines between the switching modules, and activating the new switching module. The duration of subscriber downtime in previous methods is a function of the time to move subscriber data from the old switching module to the new switching module. During this process, a subscriber may experience extensive downtime. Because such lack of service is undesirable, the process is typically performed overnight, and only a few switches are able to be exchanged in one night because of the time required to perform the process.
Accordingly, there is a need for a faster and reliable manner of exchanging switching modules.
A method of the present invention comprises the steps of mapping a plurality of existing telephone numbers for a plurality of existing lines at a first switching module to a plurality of pseudo-telephone numbers. For each of the plurality of existing lines, a pseudo-line is created at a second switching module, yielding a plurality of pseudo-lines. A transaction is generated that swaps the telephone numbers in the first switching module with the pseudo-telephone numbers in the second module. The transaction is executed, for example, by user request.